Woven Mysteries
by embercoral
Summary: On planet Popstar, Kirby's not the only one that has adventures! Follow the story of two royal siblings, Aqua and Marsha, as they go on a quest to save their kingdom  and the rest of their world  from the evil and mysterious ShadowFire.
1. Chapter 1: Just Another Day

**Chapter 1: Just Another Day**

This is a story that happened not too long ago, although you might not even realize it. It begins under the waves. In the largest ocean of Popstar, there was a hidden underwater kingdom. This was a peaceful place, mainly because it was the only kingdom around. The king and queen were benevolent to their people and always responded quickly to problems at hand. They also had two children, the future rulers of the water.

One day, an unrecorded one at that, the princess was taking what was supposed to be a relaxing stroll around the outside of the castle. She observed the guards, who were taking their afternoon nap, and continued onward towards the coral bed garden. Suddenly, she realized that her brother, the prince, was once again lagging behind, as he was talking to a couple of common folk. She crossed her arms and started tapping her foot impatiently on the soft sand.

"Aqua! AQUA!" Reacting to his sister's cry, Aqua gave a fond farewell to the citizens and started to run towards her.

"I'm coming, Marsha!" As he hurried to meet up with Marsha, he tripped over what seemed like nothing, scraping his face as he landed at her feet. Marsha, not too surprised at his fall, gave him a disgusted face.

"_Really_? You can't go through life tripping everywhere. It'll give you a bad image. Not only that, but it makes _me_ look bad!"

"Oh, please, sis! Not the royalty lecture again! Can't we just enjoy ourselves while we don't have any real responsibilities?"

"Aqua, when are you going to realize that we could become king and queen at any given moment? Our parents could die of anything! They could get killed in battle, become victims of treason (like that would happen), get eaten by a shark, contract food poisoning…"

As her list expanded, Aqua started to feel stressed. He hated this particular portion of the lecture and couldn't stand how sick and twisted Marsha's thoughts must've become to make up such a list in the first place. He never heard the full list once in his life.

"NO! Stop it, Marsha! You're scaring me! I don't want to think about that right now!"

"Think about _what_ right now?" spoke a familiar voice. The two siblings spun around to see that their mother and father were right behind them. Aqua's eyes flooded with tears as he ran to hug them.

"Mom! Dad! Thank goodness you're still alive!" His father, King Conch, turned to see his daughter blushing and nervously laughing.

"Marsha?"

"…Yes, Daddy?"

"Have you been telling your brother the 101 ways in which we'll randomly die…_again_?"

"But Daddy, how is he supposed to learn the harsh realities if I don't tell him?" The king heaved a disappointed sigh.

"We'll discuss this later. That's not why we came."

"Sweetie," The queen began, "Your father and I have decided that it's time we place the two of you into combat training." As usual, Marsha was always the first to question things.

"Combat training? Why? What for?" The king smiled.

"We just want you to be prepared when the time comes." He went on to explain. "Children, there's no guarantee that you'll be in this santuary all your life. Sure, the only real danger here as of now is the occasional shark attack, but you never know when random chance will-"

He never finished the statement because at that momnet, as if on cue, a sudden cry for help could be heard in the distance.


	2. Chapter 2: Home Invasion

**Chapter 2: Home Invasion**

"HELP!"

One of the captains was frantically sprinting towards the royal family. In this society, you were either a citizen, a soldier, or a captain. This system wasn't too complicated, and no one ever complained about it. The king greeted the captain after he almost rammed into him.

"Captain Sogweed! What seems to be the problem?" Sogweed caught his breath and tried to answer as calmly as possible, failing miserably.

"Your Majesty, there's a huge mass of EVIL invading our kingdom!"

"Huge mass of evil?" the king thought, "That's a new one..." He patted Sogweed on the back to try and calm him down and asked, "Are you sure it isn't a shark?"

"Sir...that's no shark!" Sogweed pointed at the salty sky above. The king followed his motion, looked upward, and became shocked at what he saw. Forming in the high waters was a gigantic dark cloud. The cloud vibrated a bit and then spat something out. Two hideous, one-eyed, transluscent blob monsters popped from the cloud and were heading towards the king and queen.

"Assemble all of the calvary!" the king ordered, "Send some to safely transport the citizens to their shelters!" Sogweed saluted to the group and ran off to deliver the message to the troops. Aqua became stressed again.

"What about us?" he asked. The king thought for a moment. He figured that the first thing that would be attacked is the castle, so that wasn't really safe. To place the two in a commoner's home wouldn't work, either, because finding a suitible house that wouldn't be too crowded would take forever. He then thought of a third option, a simple one, but it would most likely work. The king launched up and used a Hydrolic Blast to create a deep hole in the sand. When he was finished, he admired his work and then went to his kids.

"Get in." No questions were asked. Marsha leaped into the hole first, followed by Aqua. "Stay here," he instructed them, "So long as you don't make a sound, you'll be safe." He then covered the hole and returned to his wife. "Come. We must protect our people, and our children!"

"Right!" the queen agreed.

The two blobs growled and then transfromed into separate figures. One was a porcupine fish, and the other was a marlin. The king gave the opening attack by using his Hydrolic Blast on the porcupine fish, and the queen followed up with a Hurricane Blitz, sucking up a ton of water and spinning rapidly at the two foes. The marlin then decided to chase after her and tried to stab her with it's beak, while the porcupine fish charged the king. Both hit successfully, but neither of them were scared. The king recovered by turning his hydrolics into a jet propulsion, throwing himself at the porcupine fish and destroying it. The queen finished off the marlin by making a geyser emerge from the sand. Both of these creatures disappeared, leaving nothing behind.

"That showed them!" the king taunted, but their victory wasn't celebrated for long. From behind, two more creeps bit the king and queen in the back, instantly knocking them out. These creatures were different than the others, for they already had a definate shape. They were bug-like, with six legs, a bulbous head, and two eyes aligned vertically instead of horizontally. The bugs chuckled to themselves until they heard a voice from above.

"Tat! Tut!" The voice came from a smaller dark cloud. Standing on top of this cloud was a tall, mysterious figure shaded in dark crimson with piercing black eyes.

"Master ShadowFire!" exclaimed the one called Tut.

"Have you found the prince and princess?"

"No, sir," sighed Tat, "but we did find the king and queen."

"You know that's not what I want..." ShadowFire's voice was always calm, a rather unusual trait.

"Sir," Tut pleaded, "we're searching as best as we can, but to no avail. I feel as though we are right on top of them!"

"Shall we dispose of their parents?" Tat asked. ShadowFire looked off into the distance, as if he ignored the question, but he soon responded.

"No. If we can't get to them...then we'll force them to come to us. Take everyone you see and imprison them. No exceptions!"

"Yes, sir!"

All at once, the immoble royal bodies became engulfed by shadows and disappeared. The only things that remained were their crowns.


	3. Chapter 3: Fallen Kingdom

**Chapter 3: Fallen Kingdom**

Little by little, the once beautiful castle fell to rubble. The soldiers fought tenaciously, but the strange transforming creatures were somehow stronger than any black tip or hammerhead they ever came across in the past. Some of the fighters, after seeing what happened to their companions, simply surrendered without being provoked. The civilians were even more unprepared. Families were separated in all of the confusion, and the villages burned brightly in an unusual spectacle of light and smokey waters. Marsha and Aqua couldn't see any of this happeneing while hiding in the dark pit, but they could hear the screams of terror and the gruesome monsters snarling. The siblings lost track of time, but after what seemed like hours, Aqua couldn't take it any longer.

"...Marsha?"

"What?"

"I'm scared..."

"I don't hear anything outside anymore. Whoever they were must have given up and left by now!"

"But-"

"No buts! Now get up there! I can't hold you up much longer!"

And with that, Aqua reluctantly dug away the layer of sand keeping them hidden and looked around. He became petrified with fear as he viewed all of what was left in the kingdom,practically ruins. A few burnt houses here and there made it look as though someone simply arson-ed the place to drive people away from protection. There were only a few small stones where the castle once stood.

Marsha pushed him out of the hole so that she could also have a look. She noticed that her brother was crying again. She then found theirparents' crowns lying in the sand, unharmed by the unnatural fire. Neither the prince nor princess said a word, but they placed their smaller crowns beside the larger ones as a sort of memorial. All was quiet for a time, until Marsha started thinking.

"Aqua, we can't stay here much longer."

"What do you mean?"

"What if those weirdos come back? What if they're looking for us? We can't just be their welcoming committee!" Aqua stared at his sister, unable to argue. "Dad was right...we're defenseless."

"Then perhaps I can help," said a distant voice. It was Tobo, the pink dolphin, one of the royal family's ocean friends. "I'm glad to see that you two are still here." Marsha was excited, but then puzzled.

"Wait...you know about this?"

"They were after me a while ago."

"Who?"

"The Morphoids."

"Huh?"

"Those one-eyed creatures you must have seen earlier. They tried to force me into telling their leader, ShadowFire, where your castle was located, but I refused. They almost killed me, but I managed to escape." Aqua was trembling at the thought, but Marsha was stubborn to learn more.

"ShadowFire...so _that's_ our enemy's name! Did you manage to find out anything else?"

"Yes...that they were specifically looking for you two!"

"I knew it! We can't stay here!"

"Tobo," Aqua wondered, "I really don't like this! What are we going to do?"

"I'll show you!" Tobo replied with a grin. He took out his MirrBeam Wand and pointed it at Aqua.

"Whaa? What are you doing?"

"I'm going to teach you how to fight."


End file.
